ASAM AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. 413 



their followers, numbered as many more, and for a guard we had ten 

 fusileers of the Khamti militia. But strong as was our party with this 

 accession, Lieutenant Burlton and myself derived little advantage from 

 it in our personal comfort. We had but sixteen coolies to carry both 

 our own light equipment of necessaries, and several bundles of presents, 

 besides the few instruments I took. 



We embarked our stock of rice and our own followers on the 15th 

 April, in canoes covered over with a thin bamboo mat : the temperature 

 at this time varied from sixty-nine degrees at sun-rise, to eighty-seven 

 degrees at four o'clock, and in the sun it was as high occasionally as one 

 hundred and seventeen degrees. The navigation of the Diking, which 

 we entered on the second day, proved very tedious : we were subjected 

 both to delay and inconvenience by the frequent occurrence of storms. 

 Some mention has already been made of the Diking, (Noa Diking), 

 and an account given of the gradual formation of this river by the 

 natural enlargement of previously existing streamlets, in consequence 

 of the ancient channel having become choked with stones. It is nar- 

 row, being seldom more than one hundred yards broad, and its course 

 is tortuous, as might be expected from the equal level of the plains 

 which it intersects. Above Seyong, where the rapids commence, its 

 character resembles that of the Brahmaputra, beyond Sadiya, in simi- 

 lar sub-divisions into small channels. The entire difference of level 

 from Sadiya to Kasan, (which may be said to be at the extreme limit of 

 the navigable part of its course) is four hundred and nineteen feet, 

 of which upwards of four hundred feet are due to the twenty miles between 

 Kasan and Seyong, and of this again, the last eight miles below Kasan 

 must claim a large proportion : without the aid of a party of Singfos 

 from this place, we could scarcely have dragged the canoes up the vio- 

 lent rapids, immediately below it where the river, just before throwing 

 off the Bori Diking branch, washes the base of a perpendicular cliff, 



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